I know I'm not the only one. I have all the Veritas Press cards, Story of the World, Bibloplan, and my chronological arrangement of my favorite Sonlight books. But how to pick the best of the best without losing what is left of my mind?!
So I set out to get really organized.
Supplies:
First, I
went out and bought some supplies from Office Depot:
 | 8"x5" unlined note cards, plain white |
| a sturdy 8"x5" card file box with a lid (get the best one you can afford -- it takes a beating) |
| three packages of Jan-Dec 8"x5" note card dividers (for a total of 36 dividers). |
Order VP Cards Chronologically:
Next, I took my VP cards and put them all in order. I'm using Bible and history together, so I organized them by the number at the bottom of the card, which intersperses all the Bible cards throughout the history cards. You do end up with a few duplicates, which I just stored at the back of the box, along with the VP cassette tapes.
Add any other resources you want to use:
Next, I made lots of cards from other sources, and filed each of these cards interspersed with the VP cards, wherever in the timeline it was appropriate:
Story of the World:
| I made one white card for each chapter of Story of the World (SOTW),
Volume 1. This was helpful because SOTW covers Eastern civilizations and
VP does not. |
| You could also look in your SOTW
activity guide and write down the applicable page numbers on this card and
supplemental reading ideas so that when you get there, you know right
where to go. |
| Since my SOTW binding is falling apart from frequent use, I actually considered just breaking the book into individual chapters, spiral binding them, and filing the chapters themselves in the box -- it's exactly the right size. I may actually do that next time around when my older two are doing logic ancients and my now-3-year-old boybarian is doing grammar ancients. |
Reading lists:
| I made one card for each period of history in my Biblioplan
reading list -- Egypt, Nation of Israel, Ancient East, etc. I
filed these cards in order with the others. |
| I also made cards from a web
page that lists all the Sonlight books in chronological WTM order, and filed those
in the appropriate section of history in the box. |
| I went through my book collections and made one card for each of the books I might like to use, and filed them in with the rest. |
Poetry and memorization:
| I went through the grammar stage sections of The Harp and
Laurel Wreath, and Poems for Memorization. I scanned each selection that applied
to a period of history we would be studying and that I thought we might
enjoy memorizing, and printed each on its own separate 8x5 card. I filed
these in with the history cards, again in chronological order. |
| I jotted down references for Bible verses I wanted the kids to memorize, and filed them in with the appropriate stories. |
Projects:
| I also made cards for projects I had been saving -- one week we cut out and assembled Solomon's Temple from Abington's Book of Buildings. Another week we made a mummy out of a grocery-story chicken (eeew!). |
Organize by the 36-week school year:
Finally, I made the divider cards (these are already shown in the previous pictures):
| I took the 36 Jan-Dec cards, turned them over to the back
(where the tab is blank), and labeled them "Week 1, Week 2, Week 3....
Week 36." |
| Then I decided how much history I wanted to cover in one
year. I pulled out all those cards -- VP plus all the
others I had added -- and divided them into 36 more-or-less even
weeks. |
| I filed them, organized by week, behind the appropriate
dividers. |
| Now all I have to do each week is pull out the cards for
whatever week I need, look over
the books to see which ones I want to use (some will be logic and rhetoric
books which I will just save for a later year, others I might want to
assign to the kids as readers, and others I might just read for my own
education), and spend the week working from that pile. |
| When I finish with a week, I place that index card at the back until next year. |
Other items that might file well...
| CDs of the VP tapes (or just a card mentioning the
tape); |
| a card for each of the many documentaries I tape from the History
Channel; |
| booklets made from scanned pictures of the cards plus the
words to the songs (shown below) |
| [your idea here]. |
Note to those who asked how I managed to do this all and retain any
sanity...: When I say, "I made a card," this doesn't
mean I did anything fancy! All I did was to take a white card, scribble on it in pencil -- name of book only
or even just an abbreviation of the title (i.e., SOTW), no description or
author or anything (this is not library science, you know!), and stuffed
it into the right place in the box. For my BiblioPlan cards, I copied the
reading list, cut it up into pieces, and taped the piece for a certain
time period to a white card before stuffing it into the
box, too. Memory verses are often just the reference, again stuffed in. No
need to be obsessive/compulsive... at least, not more than absolutely
necessary!
---------------------------------------
Follow-up ideas from other home schooling moms.....
More ideas from Karen in Atlanta:
| Cards for library books or videos you want to use. Our library's card
catalog is available online, so I can look up books and subjects at home,
request them, and pick them up all at once when they're available. If you
didn't want to use library books every week, you could just see at a
glance which weeks look "thin" and do a search on that week's
subject matter. |
| Cards for history-related writing assignments - anything from
dictation or copywork sources to IEW-style assignments. I usually type up
one IEW-type source each week - they could be printed directly onto cards,
or on regular paper and cut-and-paste onto the cards. Oooh, I really like
the idea of this!! |
| Cards for grammar topics - you could go through your grammar or
spelling curriculum and see what rules or concepts you want to review each
week. Then those cards would be right there along with your other memory
work. (Of course, you could make a separate card file for this subject
since it's not strictly history-related.) |
| Cards for vocabulary words that go with the week's history readings. |
Another idea from Doreen in Canada:
I just couldn't afford the Activity Guide, so I'm sort of creating my own in a three-ring binder. I've just set up a page for every chapter in SOTW and am adding booklists, coloring pages and maps off the web, activity suggestions from various library books (with a referring page number) and off these boards (I print out the messages or just make notes). I just three-hole punch everything so I can place it into the appropriate chapter in the binder.
As we work through the year (so far we've only made it to ch.3!) I am noting my comments about the books and activities we've used, and I'm including copies of the wordsearch puzzles etc. that I'm making up, so they are there for the next child.
I guess a binder wouldn't work so well for the VP cards, but I don't have those so this is working nicely for me. I love having everything in one place.
Another idea from Anna:
Great idea, Katherine! Now for the "index-card challenged"
person...I'm setting up something similar only in binder format, listing
books, docum & story videos, all divided into 4 history periods.
And a follow-up to Anna's idea from Janie:
I have the VP cards side-hole-punched (only top two holes). Anything I use or come across goes into the binder. All articles/pictures I come across are there, including cassette tapes that are dropped into a page protector. The outlines that I make from the text, all quizzes/tests that I make up (a blank copy, plus a copy with answers) are there too. Because so much accumulates so quickly, the binders fill up. For just history, I have a 3 inch binder for each Ancient Civilizations from creation through China, Ancient Greece, Rome, Medieval, and the Renaissance/Reformation. The post-Reformation--1850 binder began this year. And all that's just for history.
I have upper level science binders for biology, human A & P and Astronomy.
But the largest and quickest to fill up are my literature binders. I have one for each of the history periods mentioned above. Sometimes I include a public domain copy of something we are studying. There is so much material I come across and want to save to use again that the binder has been a de-cluttering device for me. Since we are studying Shakespeare all of this year (eight plays), I have one for Shakespeare. Each of my binders have page dividers that separate the material, whether it is a book, a play, or a historical period. We are also doing a poetry study that we alternate with Shakespeare, so there is a binder for that too.
Just today, after finishing Romeo & Juliet yesterday, I found a study
of fencing that I included in the binder and that we will read next week.
There are so many "extras" you come across while in one main
study. Binders have been a clutter-save for me!
